Whenever you ask any of today's top "Street Rock" bands to cite their influences you can bet that, alongside the likes of Sham 69, The Lurkers and Cock Sparrer will be the name of Slaughter & The Dogs. Slaughter & The Dogs were originally formed in early `76 in Wythenshawe/ Manchester by schoolfriends Mick Rossi (guitar) and Wayne Barratt (vocals), the name stemming from two of their biggest influences - Mick Ronson's "Slaughter On 10th Avenue" and Bowie's "Diamond Dogs". With bassist Howard "Zip" Bates and drummer Brian "Mad Muffer" Grantham they gigged in and around their local area before getting their first break - a support slot to the Sex Pistols at the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall on July 20th 1976. They led the charge of the Manchester New Wave Brigade (including The Buzzcocks, The Drones, The Fall, etc...) and their first London gigs came courtesy of support slots to both The Pistols and The Damned in late `76 whilst gigs at the legendary Roxy Club were recorded for a compilation LP "Live At The Roxy" for which they contributed the cuts "Runaway" and "Boston Babies" which more than made their mark on the worldwide punk movement.

The band had two goals when they started as Wayne Barratt explains: "First, we had one that no other punk band said at the time, we wanted to be stars! The other bands were like "No Future" and we were, hey we can be punk rock stars which wasnít hip to say at the time. We wanted to be like Bowie, like Kiss and today, the guy who tells me, eye to eye, that he doesn't want to be a star, he's a liar. All the artists are narcissistic, they're all here to show their asses. The other thing, Slaughter wasn't a garage band, we were a street band, a real one. We were all old convicted with criminal cases, so we wanted to show the kids that, with a little work, you could get out of trouble.

"We were proud to put our city on the map, along with the Buzzcocks, Warsaw and some other bands. We gave our contributions to the Manchester scene and I'm proud of that". Slaughter &;The Dogs never had a good relationship with the press as they weren't from London. Wayne Barrat continues: "We were from Manchester and they were very chauvinistic. That's why we decided to move to London and get into this bullshit media/promo thing which I wasn't into at all. Everything the press ever said about punk was totally fake. The press only needed good stories to sell. I remember Sid Vicious at the Roxy, journalists would buy him drinks and have him start a fight so the photographs would go "Clic clac, thank you Kodak" and then had their story. But it wasn't reality at all. The audience was hot, but not violent. There's more violence at shows today, I think. Of course there should have been a fight here and there, but nothing really bad".

Prior to the release of "Live At The Roxy" Slaughter signed to the Manchester based Rabid Records who were impressed by the furious rock n-roll style of guitarist Mick Rossi and the manic rantings of Wayne Barratt and, on May 16th 1977, released their debut 45 "Cranked Up Really High/The Bitch", the music press dubbing them "Manchester's masters of talcum powder Punk" due to Barratt's liberal use of talc at every gig! As Wayne Barratt recalls "By then we were still into the Roxy Music/Bowie thing and didn't have a clue about what punk was! While we were recording our 7", our producer Martin Hannet said, this is punk rock! We didn't know what this meant, we were just some kids who couldn't play their instruments, it wasn't our goal to be punk. I guess we just bought the concept because we were so young. We were playing something like "Waiting For My Man" with the whole Marshall, distortion thing, with the guts and hate, with the "Look at me, I do exist" feeling. It was always aggressive. The only punk thing by then was Iggy Pop, I always wanted to be Iggy's son! It was the right stuff, covering his body with peanut butter, it's not a Gary Glitter thing". Decca Records then stepped in to sign the band and their first release for the label was September 16th 1977's "Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone/You're A Bore"which was issued in both 7" and 12" formats and for which the band also made a promo video. Though the song is now regarded as an all-time street classic, it landed Slaughter in trouble with gig after gig cancelled as the band felt the full force of the punk backlash. The song was written by Wayne Barratt and was about the way he was in 1972, a skinhead supporting Manchester United. Wayne continues "By then, there was violence during the football games, but it wasn't political at all. During Slaughter's last shows, there was those big racist skinheads coming with Slaughter tattoos next to "sieg heil" tattoos. I'm Jewish and religious and I was going to these guys, telling them, hey you're crazy, you come to a show, watch a schmuck sing and sieg heil, are you nuts? Sham 69 had the same kind of problems with the National Front but it was even worse for us as Sham sort of had a whole set of songs dealing with things skins can relate to while we only had "Boot Boys" which the skins considered as an anthem.

You have to understand that a bootboy was a 1972 type skin, not a `79 skin, it's totally different. I was definitely happy when I left the band that this Slaughter/skinhead relation was over. I never was into this nazi skinhead thing! "Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone" ended up on the 1980 "Oi! The Album" compilation which the band were not happy with at all as Wayne explains: "I don't like some of the bands on that record politically. You have to understand something, music is not here to lead you to political opinions, itís here to make you escape, to make you dream. With my lyrics, it's only stories, personal stories, nothing political. I keep my opinions for myself. With this Oi! compilation, they didn't ask us anything, they just used our song. I knew Garry Bushell well, he was a Hersham boy, Sham 69's following. Our goal with Slaughter wasn't to be a skinhead band or to have a skinhead following, it was to give pleasure to the most kids, give `em something to release their energy so they wouldn't act crazy outside the show, in their everyday life. It was working out great at first but by the end, we had like 800 skins sieg heiling, it was ridiculous. On the other hand it kinda helped the band `cos when people talk about Slaughter &;The Dogs, everybody goes "Boot Boys". The song went into the Top-100 in England, it was our best selling record but definitely, the song was misinterpreted, you had to take care by then about what you were saying in England!"

November 30th 1977 saw the release of the "Dame To Blame/Johnny T" single which was followed on 27th February 1978 by the "Quick Joey Small/Come On Back" single which featured a guest appearance by Rossi's hero, Mick Ronson.

The band's debut LP "Do It Dog Style" was finally released in May `78 though poor sales resulted in the label dropping the band leading to them splitting shortly after its release, vocalist Barratt relocating to France in search of romance! Wayne Barratt explains "Ken Muffet, our drummer, and Mike wanted to do something else while Howard, the bass player was more into a Cheap Trick/pop thing and me I wanted to improve within our punk rock thing, if you can call it punk. Musicwise, it was definitely a "no future" thing, everything had to be commercial, The Clash had changed, the Pistols were gone... everything went New Wave, except for The Damned who were still hot! I really didn't like this New Wave thing at all, that's not what punk meant to me: between `75 and `78 punk wasn't a music style nor a lifestyle, it was a mess! You could do whatever you wanted, just like the hippies did in the early 70s with the "Flower Power", there was no limitations". Rabid issued the "Live Slaughter Rabid Dogs" LP, recorded at Manchester's Belle Vue on 9th July 1977 whilst TJM issued the four track "Slaughter & The Dogs" 12" around the same time as Rossi, Bates, Muffet and new guitarist Billy Duffy (ex-The Nosebleeds, later of The Cult) teamed up with a new vocalist Steven Morrisey (later of The Smiths!) to play a couple of gigs under the Slaughter & The Dogs banner.

By May `79 Rossi, Bates, Duffy and drummer Phil Rowland (ex-Eater) had re-emerged as The Studio Sweethearts, releasing the single "I Believe/It Isn't Me" for DJM Records though with few promoters willing to book the band (they all wanted Slaughter) The Sweethearts folded just two months later. Re-uniting with Barratt and Muffet and relaunching as Slaughter & The Dogs the band issued the 45 "You're Ready Now/Runaway" on November 8th 1979 though this reunion also proved to be temporary as the rest of the band got tired of Wayneís constant unscheduled excursions to France and he was replaced by former Nosebleeds vocalist Ed "Banger" Garrity. He debuted on the "East Side Of Town/One By One" single, released in February 1980, and also appeared on the "Bite Back" LP - the band actually making a full-length video, recorded at Londonís Dingwalls, for the whole album which to this day has never seen outside the record companyís vaults - and the "I'm The One/What's Wrong Boy (Live)/Hell In New York" single before Slaughter & The Dogs called it a day again in early `81, disillusioned by their lack of commercial success.

Looking back on the punk rock explosion, Wayne reckons it can happen again in the 90s, albeit in a different atmosphere. "Today we're living in the same disco shit thing we had in 1972, the "world music" thing is totally dumb to me, those guys who piss in water or whatever and do a song with it, it's so stupid! Who want this? Me, I like to see a band with real instruments, with 4 or 5 guys sweating and screamingî.

After splitting with his wife, it made Wayne Barratt want to start again though original bassist Howard Bates and drummer Brian Grantham werenít into it, so after a call from the Trojan/Receiver label who wanted a new Slaughter LP Wayne, Mike and some French drummer called No'l got together in 1992 to record the forgettable bluesy rock album "Shocking" including a cover of Gary Moore's "Back On The Streets".

Nothing was heard from the band ever since until 1996 when Slaughter & The Dogs were announced to play at the "Holidays In The Sun" bash, a massive celebration of 20 years of Punk which saw the reunion of several other early punk rock bands like The Drones, Eater, The Carpettes, Suburban Studs, Spizz Energi, etc... The line-up being Wayne Barratt on vocals, Mike Rossi on guitar, Nigel Mead on bass and No'l Kay on drums. Their brilliant performance has been captured on the "Live In Blackpool 1996" CD, a superb desk recording on which all the hits get an airing (available through Get A Loife distro in case you're interested and you should really...) and on the "Cranked Up Really High In Blackpool" video which also includes an interview with Wayne Barratt who reckons that the live album gave them the possibility to put things right: "There is no message behind the name of Slaughter and our only mission was and still is to let the people who pay to come and see us decide if we were good or bad. Looking back on the last 20 years I have heard and seen so much shit being grinded out which has suffocated us into a totally false image - the "Live & Compiled" predecessors were totally crap but of course after these items had been released it was too late, the damage had been done. We were not notified about these non-official recordings which is why Mike and myself decided to do the gig and record it for an album at the same time to set the record straight. After seeing all the old & new punks at Blackpool I would like to say that I think there is a future in punk music - if you listen to the album and think hey I'd like to do the same think, go for it! When we started out we were sick of disco music, now it's the same with all the techno bullshit. If you want to listen to real live bands, keep going to the gigs, don't just sit on your arse and watch top of the fuckin' pops. Form bands, play wherever you can and keep what's called culture alive!" Mick Rossi adds "We were all drawn to Blackpool to celebrate 20 years of attitude, raw music and raw power. We had a fine time that night, the atmosphere was dripping off the walls. It was great to be united under one roof with an amazing crowd and an arsenal of bands." Some Slaughter & The Dogs fanatic said after the show: "They played like they'd had a gig every night from 1977 to now. The likes of Runaway, Boston Babies, Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone and Cranked Up Really High sounded as fresh as ever as they blasted through them in their same old Punk meets Glam Rock style."

Over twenty years after their formation, their name is still held in much higher esteem than many of their so-called peers and their records are now highly prized and expensive collectors items. As Mick Rossi said "Maybe because we never sold out, people feel our music is an honest reflection of angry British 70s youth and if it's inspired anyone to pick up a guitar and form a band, then I can only say that we've achieved much more then we ever set out to do."

More friggen reviews than you can shake a stick at. We got it all, from oi to hardcore to psychobilly and even the blues. Check em out!

More Interviews with: